But even without the appropriate toys and clothes, lessons in the art of being feminine lay all around me and I absorbed them a

But even without the appropriate toys and clothes, lessons in the art of being feminine lay all around me and I absorbed them all.≤

When Susan Brownmiller was a kid, everything she did was based on femininity. She had to help her mother in the kitchen setting the table and she loved girly magazines and soap operas. When I was a kid, my mom raised me in no specific ways to be a girly-girl, or very feminine. First of all, I have three older brothers and we are all born in the matter of five years, making us close in age. I would play out on the camouflaged tree fort with them that my dad built for us, and pretend to shoot down anyone who was on the nearby rope swing. I would try to play every sport they played in the backyard, and I would always try to be the best one. If that required getting my knees scratched up and my palms dirty in a game of football, thatπs what I did. When I used to go over my cousinsπ house and they had at least twenty barbies, I used to think it was the coolest thing, but I would never trade playing with my brothers for barbies. Any Barbie I ever owned at home got it head torn off. The only accepted doll was a GI Joe, and if I ever referred to it as a doll then I would probably get beat up. If I ever ran to the television faster than my brothers and put on Barney instead of Power Rangers, there would be a full out brawl in my living room with all kinds of swears being thrown in the mix; regarding that we were at a range of ages from about 5 to 10. When I grew a little older, in elementary school, I was always a tom-boy. I had girl friends but they were either tomboys or they were not the extreme girly girl. I used to wonder why girls tried so hard at looking good; why they put on makeup and spent a half hour doing their hair when I could get by without it and look just fine. I still am not as girly as most girls, but I have learned a few rules of femininity that make sense and are actually useful to me.

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"It is fashionable in some quarters to describe the feminine and masculine principles as polar ends of the human continuum and to sagely profess that both polarities exist in all people. Sun and moon, ying and yang, soft and hard, active and passive, etcetera, may indeed be opposites, but a linear continuum does not illuminate the problem."

Response:

I like this quite because it reminds me of a person on one of my favorite reality shows. The reality show is called A Shot at Love and it stars a bi-sexual who starts with sixteen girls and sixteen guys. Gradually she will eliminate them down to one but this quote mainly represents the types of people on the show. There are manly men, girly men, girly girls, and manly girls. One girl's name is Dani and she is the epitome of a guy. At first I actually mistook her for a guy. She dresses and acts in a masculine way but is still a girl. That just shows how everyone has a little bit of guy and girl in them, it's just their choice how to express it. Dani decided to adopt the more manly part and hide the girly one. It also shows that everything needs another side to reach equilibrium. If we didn't have the opposite side in us I think that we would be totally helpless. If I didn't have somewhat of a masculine side I would just be useless and probably a ditz. I know that I'm knocking the girl stereotype a little but if that's how most girls are going to act these days then it's their fault people make fun of it.

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